Do you use your mobile phone a lot, even during social gatherings?
If you dine in at this Texan restaurant, you’ll have to get used to not seeing or using your mobile while you dine in their establishment.
An Italian restaurant called Caterina’s in Fort Worth, Texas wants its customers to have a pleasurable dining experience. And part of that means no cellphones on the table.
And to make sure that there are no phones on the table when you check in, you’re required to lock up your mobile phone. They’ll lock it in a bag, which will only be unlocked when you’ve finished your meal and leaving the restaurant.
Tim Love, chef and owner of Caterina’s, said they want to make the customer’s dining experience special and memorable.
And a cellphone can ruin that moment.
That’s why when you enter the restaurant, they will ask for your cellphone, which they’ll place in a small bag that locks with a magnetic seal.
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Sometimes people will forget that they have their phones with them but the servers are always on the lookout.
“Well, we’re going to kindly ask them to put their phone in the bag. We’ve already had that happen. Some people forget. They just have their phone in their pocket. We give them the bag. They put their phone in the bag. It’s not a big deal,” Chef Tim explained.
At Caterina’s, Chef Tim has gone old school with the mood of the entire restaurant.
You’ll hear melodies of Louis Prima or Frank Sinatra pervade the entire place. Each guest will be given a complimentary glass of rosé Prosecco and a plate of focaccia, cured meats, and aged Parmigiano Reggiano.
Caterina’s only seats 40 people including the six seats on the bar.
And Chef Tim wants to make sure every minute spent at Caterina’s is completely present with each other.
“If you can’t possibly deal without your phone for 2 hours, this is not the place for you. I mean, people go to movies, they don’t get on their phone,” Chef Tim reiterated.
And if you really need to be reached while you’re at the restaurant, you can give the person the restaurant’s landline number. When you get a call, they’ll bring an old rotary phone to your table.
And it’s true. People’s usage of cell phones in recent years has been obsessive.
According to Reviews.org, an average American checks their phone 344 times a day. In fact, when they survived Americans, they learned that 74% of those surveyed said they check their phones within 10 minutes of waking up.
47% of the respondents are addicted to their phones and 70% will check their phone within five minutes of receiving a notification.
It gets worse.
The survey revealed that 48% of the respondents panic when their phone battery reaches 20%.
And, maybe this helped Chef Tim make this decision, 43% of the respondents use or look at their phones while on a date.
People might think this is an exaggeration since we only look at our phones for a couple of minutes. But when you combine all of those minutes, it adds up to average usage of 2 hours and 54 minutes per day.
So maybe this cellphone rule from Caterina’s is not so bad after all.
“So, then you’re like I’m just going to sit here and enjoy myself and that’s what happens. It’s been really refreshing,” Chef Time shared.
By the way, 100% of his customers love the no-cellphone rule.
Caterina’s is the first restaurant in the US to apply this rule. Pretty soon, other restaurants in other states may follow suit.
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Watch Chef Tim talk about his no-cellphone rule in the video below.
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